Schools Gear Up As Bilingual Ed. Law Takes Effect

Next week will be a busy one at Belvedere Elementary School in East
Los Angeles.

Nearly 500 of the multitrack school's 1,300 students will return to
school, and administrators will have to carry out a new state law that
calls for limited-English-proficient children to be taught in
English-immersion programs, rather than bilingual education.

The school must inform the parents of its 1,000 LEP students of the
impending changes--and the opportunity to seek a waiver to exempt their
children from English immersion.

The law kicks in for school terms that begin after Aug. 2, and
year-round schools, like Belvedere, will be among the first in
California to translate Proposition 227 into the classroom. Other
schools across the state's 1,000 districts open for business later this
month, and observers say the coming school year will be filled with
trial and error.

California voters approved the controversial ballot measure on June
2. And the state school board last month approved temporary regulations
that, for the most part, leave to districts the task of interpreting
the sometimes open-ended terms of the new law. ("Uncertainty Follows Vote on Prop. 227,"
June 10, 1998.)

While many administrators say they welcome the flexibility to set up
programs that they believe comply with the law, they also wonder
whether such flexibility leaves them more vulnerable to legal
challenges down the road.

Court Gives Green Light

School boards looking for more time to draw up their plans were
blocked last month.

A federal district judge in San Francisco rejected a petition from
civil rights groups seeking to block the law's implementation. The
plaintiffs have appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th
Circuit.

U.S. District Judge Charles A. Legge ruled July 15 that there is no
constitutional right to bilingual education and that a denial of
bilingual education on its face does not violate federal law.

The California law calls for LEP students to be taught in
"sheltered" or "structured" English-immersion classrooms where "nearly
all" instruction is in English, but curriculum presentation is designed
for students learning English as a second language. In most cases,
students will remain in such programs for no more than one year before
moving into the mainstream, according to the law. Under some
circumstances, parents can receive waivers to enable their children to
continue in bilingual education, where they are taught at least partly
in their native languages.

Supporters of bilingual education say the approach enables students
to keep up academically while learning English. Critics say students in
bilingual education do not learn English well or quickly.

In recent years, one-third of California's 1.4 million LEP students
were enrolled in bilingual education programs.

Debating Language

The state school board deliberately drew its rules with broad
strokes to grant districts maximum flexibility in carrying out the new
law, said Bill Lucia, the board's executive director.

But Proposition 227 backers say the board may have overreached in
the area of parent waivers, enabling districts to easily circumvent
English immersion, said Sheri Annis, a spokeswoman for the "English for
the Children" campaign that launched Proposition 227.

Against such an uncertain landscape, districts need to make their
own best judgment about how to proceed, said Theresa Garcia, a policy
analyst with the California School Boards Association.

The central question many districts are now grappling with as they
devise programs is how much teachers can use students' native languages
without violating the law. State officials and the law's backers have
declined to elaborate on the law's requirement that programs be
conducted "overwhelmingly" or "nearly all" in English.

"It's a legal and a political issue for boards to make a
determination of what is 'overwhelmingly' or 'nearly all' in their
community and what do they feel is adequate educationally," Ms. Garcia
said. "Districts are really all over the place."

Observers say the stakes could be high because the law allows
parents to sue teachers and school officials who "willfully and
repeatedly" refuse to provide English instruction.

And Ms. Annis made clear last week that backers of the measure will
be watching for districts that "stretch the law as far as possible and
maybe break that rubber band."

Making Plans

The 681,000-student Los Angeles district, which educates 310,000
students with limited English proficiency--nearly a quarter of the
state's total LEP population--plans to offer parents four options.
Parents could choose to place their child in a mainstream all-English
class, a bilingual class--which would require a waiver-- or in one of
two versions of English immersion that offer varying degrees of
native-language help.

Other districts are going to the courts for guidance.

Lawyers for the state school board have determined that although the
board generally has the power to waive parts of the state education
code, the board could not offer districtwide exemptions from
Proposition 227.

Charter schools, however, are exempt from much of the education
code, including the provisions of Proposition 227, and observers point
to such schools as a potential way to avoid the law's intent.

The Oakland, Berkeley, and Hayward school districts have filed a
petition in a state court to try to force the state board to consider
its waiver proposals. The districts are scheduled for a hearing in
Alameda Superior Court late this month.

San Francisco officials say they will add an English-immersion
option while continuing bilingual programs they say are required under
a 1976 federal consent decree. The decree stems from the Lau v.
Nichols case. In the landmark 1974 Supreme Court decision, the
court said the schools must offer LEP students special help to grant
them equal access to the curricula.

"It is important for you to know that our decision to continue our
bilingual programs is not a defiant act against Proposition 227,"
Superintendent Waldemar Rojas said in a July 22 letter to parents and
teachers.

But in Los Angeles, despite of his district's plan, Steve Zimmer
said he is expecting chaos. The English-as-a-second-language teacher at
Marshall Senior High School has organized teacher resistance to
Proposition 227.

"There's no question that there will be noncompliance," he said.
"Teaching is hard enough without all these restrictions."

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